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Verizon and Carnival's ship cell tower


prchoudh

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I was informed by Verizon today that if you sail on Carnival. you can make and receive calls on your cell phone while on the ship. They supposedly have an agreement with Carnival. I beilieve the rate is $1.29 per minute. I tried to verify this with Carnival and they did not know anything about it.

 

Anyone have any experience with this topic?

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I've used my Verizon service phone on many Carnival cruises. It is $2.49 pm while on board. It is usually less to use the phone while in port, even with roaming charges. Here is the website for Verizon with rates including ship coverage, text rates, etc. Hope it helps some. :)

 

http://b2b.vzw.com/international/Roaming/rates_coverage.html

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i called verizon this am to ask about rates--i was told $2.49 on ship and $1.99 off ship--she said be sure you are away from the ship or the 2.49 will be charged. she also said if you have cell phone on and a call comes in and you don't answer it--the call is not charged. texting .50 and .05 incoming

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I was informed by Verizon today that if you sail on Carnival. you can make and receive calls on your cell phone while on the ship. They supposedly have an agreement with Carnival. I beilieve the rate is $1.29 per minute. I tried to verify this with Carnival and they did not know anything about it.

 

Anyone have any experience with this topic?

 

 

Cellular At Sea, the provider of the satellite link that makes cell calls possible, charges a $2.49/min access fee. Verizon may charge an additional $1.29/min additionally.

I have Sprint and my plan covers roaming so there's no additional charge for my service other than what Cellular At Sea's fee is.

:)

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Good point - if your cell plan does not charge for roaming then it will be $2.49 a minute. The call can never be less than that, but with some plans it will be more.

 

I guess people who would pay $10 for a drink would also pay $10 for a short call home but I would rather save my money and email family when in port.

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I was informed by Verizon today that if you sail on Carnival. you can make and receive calls on your cell phone while on the ship. They supposedly have an agreement with Carnival. I beilieve the rate is $1.29 per minute. I tried to verify this with Carnival and they did not know anything about it.

 

Anyone have any experience with this topic?

 

There have been dozens of threads, so there is alot of info in those threads.

 

It's $2.49 a minute. Be aware, if you leave your cell phone turned on during the cruise, every voicemail or ring will cost you $2.49 a minute or portion thereof, even if you don't answer the phone or listen to the voicemail.

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I have Sprint and was on the Glory last August. I used my phone several times onboard, but mostly in-posrt to check back home, and then it was only for a few minutes. The calls would connect/ring and then disconnect, or would disconnect after a a minute or two. When we got back home the charges were several hundreds of dollars. Carnivals "tower, satellite or comm. system" apparently was using a satellite over the Congo! We did get most of the charges from Sprint dropped after telling them we were in the Western Caribbean, which is nowhere near the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

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Anyone have info on nTelos service? I was told if we could text each other there would be no charge for this. nTelos does provide free roaming also....does this help if making a call in port?

We were hoping to be able to text each other to find our locations on the ship!

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I had absolutely NO luck in attempting use my cell the ONE time I wanted to on our last cruise. I couldn't even get the darn call to go THROUGH. So don't rely on it at ALL. I ended up having to suck up the $9.95/min charge just to check in for 3 minutes (rather than pay for and struggle with the internet cafe).

 

Although, I must say, I was glad I had my cell phone when stuck on the Valor, with a hiccup regarding the ship clearing Customs, and had to call to change our flights. That is why I won't travel without it, if for no other reason.

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Alltel is now , Verizon !

While answering the phone aboard ship .

My wife received a bill of sixty dollars from Alltel ,for around twenty minutes usage.

We take our cell phones aboard now days ,cut off and in the safe just in case we may need them.

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:eek:For the first 2 days on our cruise my daughter kept using her cell phone. "Well Mom, it says DR just like it does at home." I mentioned this to our tablemates and they told her "Go to your cabin and turn off your phone now!" Thankfully she listened, but still was welcomed home to a cell bill of $1000!!! I admit I was surprised that the calls she made while we were still in the Port of Miami were also charged at the same outrageous rate. She will have to work a lot of hours @$8.00/hr. to pay off THIS bill!!! :eek::eek::eek:

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When we were on the Glory my sister insisted on calling home daily to check on her 7 year old. I kept telling her to stop the bill would be outrageous. Well, I was wrong, the calls never showed up as anything more that the family plan cell to cell calls. Now this may have been because they are on the family plan with the cell she was calling and they have international calling enabled on their plan. Don't really know.:confused:

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When we were on the Glory my sister insisted on calling home daily to check on her 7 year old. I kept telling her to stop the bill would be outrageous. Well, I was wrong, the calls never showed up as anything more that the family plan cell to cell calls. Now this may have been because they are on the family plan with the cell she was calling and they have international calling enabled on their plan. Don't really know.:confused:

That surprises me - the cell phone company will be charged at the rate of $2.49 a minute no matter what type of plan the customer has - and I'd b very surprised if they did not pass that charge along. It could have been a mistake that they were not charged - they should consider themselves very lucky, indeed.

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i called verizon this am to ask about rates--i was told $2.49 on ship and $1.99 off ship--she said be sure you are away from the ship or the 2.49 will be charged. she also said if you have cell phone on and a call comes in and you don't answer it--the call is not charged. texting .50 and .05 incoming

 

It is $1.99/minute in MOST ports, but not all...only .69 a minute in Puerto Rico and .99 in Mexico with Verizon.

 

All the detail are in the link provided. :)

http://b2b.vzw.com/international/Roaming/rates_coverage.html

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We called and had international roaming put on the phones. They gave us a specific # to call for activating it with the carnival ship. Dang phone didn't work the whole time we were on there.

 

While some may be fine leaving their phone off, I did that last year and was miserable. I have 4 kids I would like to check in on with a text every day or two.

 

I couldn't get them to send at all on board. Finally got 2 to show sent in Progresso and 1 in Cozumel. Of those 3 my Mom received only 1. Luckily it was the one saying I couldn't get texts on board so she knew there was a problem.

 

She sent me a few short ones to say everything was fine and I did get the first one she sent. Unfortunately it was after we ported back in LOL I knew if I didn't get a phone call on the ship all was fine but as a Mom I feel better if I can do a quick text for .50. Just didn't work out.

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what if you have unlimited data package and email? they charge you for the time it takes for email to be downloaded/uploaded?

 

need to be able to get email from work. i know its a vacation but its a small price to pay.

 

thanks

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what if you have unlimited data package and email? they charge you for the time it takes for email to be downloaded/uploaded?

 

need to be able to get email from work. i know its a vacation but its a small price to pay.

 

thanks

 

 

You'll need to check directly with Verizon as I don't find that specifically listed on their website for while you're on the cruiseship.

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I have a Verizon Family Plan - a fairly low number of excess minutes (1000 total for 4 lines) - and a wife who lives on her phone. We do call Verizon to add International Roaming prior to each cruise, and turn it off after we get home. First cruise or two there was no at sea cell service. The last few have had it. I try to limit her to one or two calls from port saying we arrived on board, then the same from each port. I am sure she uses the phone more than I think she does. (Have to call each adult child, talk to each grandchild, two or three friends, work, etc.) We keep the phones off while at sea.

 

My bill has been over the basic on some cruises, under on some others. It has never been over enough to be worth commenting on - & I would blow a gasket if it was $50 over.

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